Fashion

8.31.2015

By Kyla Bills

Your New Fall Look: Cozy Dystopian

It’s almost fall in New York City. Summer days are starting to give way to chilly nights, college students are back to continue their relentless gentrification of Manhattan, and the painful pseudo-season of “the holidays” is rapidly approaching. But, what to wear? What garments can you use to convey your cynicism towards the human condition that will simultaneously keep you toasty as the leaves change? In a post-Kanye WestxAdidas OriginalsFall 2015 Ready-To-Wear world, the answer is clear: a look that we’re calling “cozy dystopian.”

Cozy dystopian is a trend that has been brewing for a while.Rick Owens pioneered the cozy dystopian look. While Kanye was interupting Taylor Swift in 2009, Rick Owens’Fall/Winter collection had all the makings of the costumes for a post-apocalyptic movie. Haider Ackermann has also been inspired by a kind of Judgment Day, sportswear vision. His hoodies and bomber jackets are a Kanye-style-staple.

While inspired by a high-fashion dystopian look, Kanye made cozy dystopian more accessible. The Adidas Originals show encapsulates the look with deconstructed sweaters, torn hemlines, a splash of comfy athleisure fabrics, the neutral colors of normcore, and most importantly, a slew of unhappy looking models. Somewhere between “actually fighting for your life” and “rich businessman with a dark side” lies the realm of cozy dystopia. It’s a place where you wear moth-eaten sweaters and oversized backpacks, but look damn good; it’s The Hunger Games meets high fashion.

And since Kanye’s show in February, the cozy dystopian look has hit the mainstream.

Nothing says doom like some cozy high fashion

While the Rihanna-approved Puma picks are athleisure to the max, you can see an obvious influence from cozy dystopian with neutral colors and slim sweats. Even Nikesneakers are moving into Rapture-comfort wear with their new “Tech Pack” collection which has old-school Nike sneakers like Huaraches being updated with fleece. Cozy as fuck, but also shoes you’d wear to outrun any natural disaster. And, if you take a walk around New York it’s pretty easy to see that the next new thing is looking like an angry, comfy model in the middle of the apocalypse.

The keys to a cozy dystopian look – dark ripped jeans, neutral-colored oversized sweaters, slim fit sweatpants, backpacks that look more useful than cute, big outerwear – have been making the rounds amongst Instagram style stars for a while. While the cozy dystopian look is most common among Kanye-stans like Vic Mensa and Travi$ Scott, artists like Sky Ferreira and Jaden Smith have shown some very cool-weather, post-civilization vibes.

Sky showing some serious dystopia vibes

So if you aren’t ready for the end of the world, you definitely aren’t ready for fall. And the best thing about cozy dystopian? You’re always prepared for the end of the world. Get ready for the apocalypse.